tavis: good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. the common refrain following the recent summit meeting between the u.s. and china is that the u.s. needs to sell more goods to the chinese and others around the world and perhaps the catalyst for a new round of robust exports will be american innovation. tonight, then two conversations about how technology and american ingenuity can propel the u.s. out of this deep recession. first up, gary shapiro, president and c.e.o. of the consumer electronic association and the man behind the largest tech show in the world, c.e.s., in las vegas. then i'll be joined by david pogue, technology columnist for the new york times and hosts of the upcoming four-part "nova" series here on pbs. we're glad you joined us. a look at technology in the

21st century coming up right now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide is proud to join tavis to improve financial literacy and remove -- and improve the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> 30 years ago, we couldn't know that something called the internet would lead to an

economic revolution. what we can do, what america does better than anybody else, is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. we're the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices. a nation of edison and the wright brothers of course google and facebook. in america, innovation doesn't just change our lives, it is how we make our living. [applause] tavis: president obama, of course, last week in the state of the union address talking about the need for american innovation. we begin our look at the state of the u.s. technology with gary shapiro president and c.e.o. of the consumer electronic association and the driving force behind the annual consumer technology showcase known as the c.e.s. he's also author of the new text "the comeback. how innovation will restore the american dream." good to have you then the program. >> thank you for having me.

tavis: did you and president opaw ma coordinate this, your book about "the comeback" and his speech, did you coordinate this? >> i was overwhelmed with people noting the similarities, i'm fortunate in the timing. but the message is our nation is in trouble and our secret sauce is innovation. tavis: why do we think innovation is the way forward. >> we are in trouble financially, we have three choices, raise taxes, cut spending or grow. i like to focus on growth. there's a lot of talk about the other two. think about who we are as a nation and what we do. most of us are immigrants or descended from immigrants here. people coming here to do things better. we come from people who always challenge the status quo. we have the first amendment which encourages us to do that. as the president noted last week, we're trained to ask questions, not just for rote memorization. so we are the creative country.

we did invent the internet. every major internet country is here. many of the major tech companies are here. buy yow, motion picture, creativity. that's our secret sauce, it's innovation. tavis: in what areas, you listed a few, but in what areas are most primed for the kind of innovation that can drive america forward? >> well, entrepreneurially, the internet allows anyone to start a business, basically. it allows apps to be create. we also have a lot of platform spaces here, we have a large market interested in innovation. we also are a country frankly where it's ok to start a business and fail. we're the only nation in the world where failure in business is actually experience and that's a good thing. so there are a lot of areas that are coming very quickly, whether it's in electric vehicles or wireless applications or biotech or medical. there's so many great things coming out. the c.e.s. in january, we were

amazed. we had 2,700 companies introducing about 20,000 new products. a lot of them are just at the beginning. we're at the beginning of this digital revolution still. it's a good thing for our nation. the best thing the government can do, which i think president obama was starting to recognize, is to encourage that, to remove the problems that businesses face when they start up here, maybe to cut down the litigation a little bit, reduce the taxes and encourage investment rather than debt. tavis: you're right about the fact that we are a nation that allows people to fail and in many ways fail their way to the top. you talk to anyone who's successful they'll still you they learned more from their fail wrurs than from their successes. i also think, maybe you'll admit, maybe you won't, but i think we're a nation when we think of silicon valley, we think of innovators, particularly in technology, we think of a bunch of people who have gotten rich themselves but i'm in the sure the american people buy the argument that that innovation, pardon the phrase, trickles down, so that

bill gates is rich, suckerberg is rich, etc., etc., but what's the case to be made for the fact that innovation will trickle down and drive the country forward as opposed to making a handful of innovators rich? >> well, first of all, it's the fact that you can get rich here if you succeed which drives the best minds from around the to come here, including our most successful entrepreneurs are people who came here from abroad. president obama was great to recognize, when they get their ph.d.'s here we should make them citizens, not kick them out. let's talk about bill gates and microsoft. it was not just bill gates that got rich, it was thousands of microsoft employees and shareholders. and what did they do? they chamed the world in terms of how we process and deal with information. they improved the world's stan carred of living by making things to allow us to chune kate better and the mark place

rebards -- rewards that. we shouldn't resent rich people. we should want more rich people. we're out in a competitive world environment as the president noticed last week. it's critical we recognize this rather than put up walls as we have in the last four years around the country. we've got to get the immigrants, focus on free trade, cut the corporate taxes and stop this totally crazy spending and trying to just tax, tax, tax and say wealthy is bad. wealthy is good. it creates more innovation and that helps everybody. tavis: i don't think -- since you went there, let me play along with you, you can't talk about this, can't talk about innovation without talking about politics, particularly given your comment that there are things government can do we brought the politics in, let me follow ahong. i don't know anyone who thinks being wealthy is a sin. everyone wants to be rich. the point is the gap between the have gots and continues to widen and at best, when the president talks about

innovation, i'm just playing devil's advocate, he's talking about a handful of americans who have the capacity to innovate in the way we see being put on display at c.e.s. so the question still remains, what happens to the everyday people , the working class, those stuck in poverty who have nothing to benefit from giving tax breaks and getting rid of loopholes and tearing down hurdles for folk who happen to be innovators to get wealthy? does that make sense? >> i hear you but it doesn't make sense to me. the top 5% of americans are paying about 40% to 60% of the taxes already. tavis: but they control 90% of the wealth. that's the point. >> that's a little high number but second of all, the people like bill gates and warren buffett and them, i would trust them to invest their money much more than the government and give it back. if you look at wealthy people, i'm not one of them, they are giving back in hugely big ways to all of society. third, the fact is, we want

these people to come here. if we just tax and tax and tax, we encourage them to go to other countries. this is a world we're playing in now, not just the united states. as you raise taxes on people, the -- they are more likely to say, i can move anywhere in the world, set up my country anywhere, and our strategy as a country should be, we want those countries to be here and we want to hire americans. trickle down is the wrong word. when bill gates is spending his money or others are spending their money, that's a good thing. we don't want factories in china. i was thrilled when president obama recognized that, i've been in lots of factories, i worked in a factory, that encouraged me to go to college. we want people to focus on that and keep that in mind. when over half of americans are getting a paycheck from the government, we have reached a tilt in our system where you can't be an entitlement society. you have to choose. you have to choose between two wars, all these entitlements, social security, medicare, bailout, stimulus pack annals, bailing out the states, and all

these other things and we have -- our public officials, republican and democrat, have to say this is what's important for our future. what i like about what president owaugh madrid, he said what's important to our future, it's an innovation strategy, we're going to educate our youth, have a wireless network and we are going to be the innote vave country in the world. that's our strategy and that's a winning strategy. tavis: here's why i keep playing devil' advocate. when you talk about the fovet doing more to aid and abelt these companies, it is these same companies, you can demonize entitlements but it's these same companyus referenced earlier that keep shipping more american jobs abroad because it's cheaper to make products around the world so they're innovating but taking that innovation and giving those jobs to innovate to people around the globe and not necessarily here in this country, gary. >> that's not accurate, tavis. tavis: that is accurate. >> they manufacture in china. the chinese complain they're adding $4 to the cost of a $300

apple product by manufacturing in china then complain that the u.s. is getting all the benefit, the shareholders, design, development. but our own government has policies which encourages us to ship out. they don't let us hire the best and brightest -- brightest in the world they restrict visas, they make it difficult to sell abroad, apple counts as a deficit, they're selling in europe and china, they can't bring that money back here without it being double taxed. our own government has to change its policies to encourage the money to come back, encourage the jobs here, get rhode island they have litigation society where any businessman that starts a company is threatened with lawsuits all the tile. we can't afford it. we have to prioritize. we have to say, this is a strategy as a nation, just the way businesses have strategies and we've got to focus on what's important. is it the wars? is it the entitlements? or is it the future of our kids? we're the first generation of america to take, take, take and not sacrifice for our children.

that's unacceptable. we have to hold republicans and democrats responsible for that and instead of saying what our country can do for me, we have to ask about what we can give instead of what we can get. tavis: i guess the question is, why do you remain hopeful we can do this successfully when the competition we face, namely india and china, is like nothing we've ever seen before? >> because we are innovative, we create, we have to be sharp and we have to focus ahead. but we can't just sit there and say we lost because we didn't lose. we don't want those assembly factory jobs where you put a color of paint on the same little toy over and over again. we want to do what germany is doing which is say, we have great american skilled workers here, we want to do high precision stuff. we want to innovate, create the movies and music and science and math. tavis: what about the fact, gary, that the numbers and i don't think numbers tell the whole story but it's part of the story, as you well know,

the numbers are not in our favor. if we had every american in this country, all 300 million of us, working on an innovation project, we still can't compete with the 1.3 billion chinese working on innovation products, that's not including india. tell me how we move forward when the numbers don't appear to be on our side long-term. >> china has a lot of people, more than the u.s. and europe combined. they're starting to educate them more. but we are creative. they are following. we have to make sure they're doing it fairly, that they're not stirlinge inventions. that's why these complex relationships that both president bush and president obama are navigating, they're doing a great job. we have to keep the pressure on. it's a competitive world. how do we do it? we do it better. not necessarily cheaper but we do it better. i would point oapple, microsoft, h.p., qualcomm and hundreds of other american companies doing it better there

isn't one of the top 100 brand names in the world that's a chinese company. most of them are in the u.s. and a lot of them in the tech field. we have to keep focusing on what we're good at. that's what businesses do and what we have to do. we have to hold our politicians accountable and force them to make the tough decisions that we pay them to make. they're not doing it now. right now the politicians and the american public think they can have everything. you can't have everything. you can't always get a check from the government for not doing anything. that has to end. tavis: he's the man behind c.e.s. in las vegas, the hottest show every year for these interested in technology and innovation. his new book is called "the comeback," his name is gary shapiro. good to have you on the program. thanks for your time, shir. -- sir. >> thank you, tavis. tavis: up next, "new york times" technology columnist david pogue. stay with us. tavis: david pogue is the personal technology columnist for "the new york times" and

host of a four-part "nova" series here on pbs called "making stuff," it's airing now on wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. he joins us from new york. good to have you on the program. >> thanks so much. tavis: the difference between your column and the stuff you get a chance to do for nova is? >> there's nothing in common. it remains a mystery as to why i was chosen for the science series. the stuff i do for "times" is reviewing gaments. "nova" asked me to be host for a four-part mini series about material science which i had never heard of, i'll admit it, but i think they wanted someone curious, entertaining and the representative of the viewer to help scientists translate the geeky stuff they were talking about into terms emp can understand. tavis: what did you find curious about this geeky stuff? >> oh, my gosh. what material science is, is the study of stuff.

what everything is made of. but cutting edge, crazy new stuff based on shark skin and spider silk and carbon nano tubes. there's really wild, amazing stuff. material science is a combination of physics and chemistry and biology and this stuff is going to affect, you know, fuel and energy and medicine, all the above in the next few years. tavis: we all know the other night, president obama talked in his state of the union address about innovation being the key to advance our country forward. i guess the question is whether or not america is still making stuff. i was looking at some numbers the other day that suggest, you know, that we are clearly no longer the world's leading manufacturer and that ain't rocket science, all you have to do is pick up anything around you and you'll see a tag, made in china, made in the philippines, made somewhere. so here you have a four-part series called making stuff that begs the question, is america still making stuff?

>> you know, that's a completely amazing question. that's why you have this talk show. i think it's true, there's a -- the manufacturing has moved to cheaper countries. it's not about skill or abilities it's about the cost of labor. where america can excel and still does is in the innovation of designing stuff, of building what the next stuff is going to be and the really exciting thing about doing this series, we wind up interviewing scientists all over the world in their labs, going to where they're actually doing the work and over and over and over again, we met scientists who were just excited. i don't care what your politics are about the current governmental administration but one thing is sure, they are into science. all these guys are funded again and they're being encouraged again and their work in energy an health and materials is being supported and fostered again. they're really excited about that. by the way, i was excited to be

involved with the show that is aimed at everyone from kids to adults. another big crisis we're facing is having the decline in interest in science among young people. we need to stop that or america will lose the edge. tavis: that raises two questions for me. the first is, and i accept your compliment earlier about hosting this show but it is a different sort of thing when you're trying to conduct a primetime series like the whun you're behind with "nova" that does have as its audience everyone from 8 to 80. how do you go about putting together a show that does in fact keep the interest and that can be understood by and can inspire people in that broad age range? >> yeah, you said it. it was a very fine line. you want to teach the science, but you don't want to bore people. so what the producers decided to do at "nova" was to make it experiential. they wanted to immerse me in

the most visual possible way to report these stories. so i mean, during this year and a half we filmed the thing, i swam with shashes, landed on an aircraft carrier, went hang gliding, fired an ak-47, had my blood drawn, got an m.r.i., worked with a beehive. i wasn't sure if they were trying to film me or kill me but it was very exciting and makes for very, very visual television. that's a big part of it. also, they have the most incredible computer generated graphics to illustrate these points. behind the scenes, what materials is are is molecules and atoms. on a tiny, tiny level, especially with nanotechnology and to illustrate that you need killer computer graphics and they came up with it. tavis: the real reason why i host this show is nova couldn't pay me enough to do all the stuff you did other the last year and a half. that's why i'm sitting here while you're out playing with

bees and swimming with sharks. i'm in 85-degree weather in a stewed kuo in los angeles. that's why i do this. that said, i want to go back to the part we were discussing earlier about the stuff that is being made by americans. help me understand why it is or how it is we are still, you know, leading the innovation in terms of making the stuff that stuff is out of but not making the stuff at the end of the run, if you follow me. your point was we're making the materials the new designs that the stuff is going to be made out of. but why are we making the stuff it's going to be made out of as opposed to making the stuff? >> that's the economic question that just -- we don't have people in this country who are willing to work for $1 a day. that's why all the jobs are going to china and so on. but that -- every country has its own imports and exports, right? every country doesn't have to excel in everything.

the things we are coming up with are absolutely amazing. so for example, the reason i went swimming with sharks is this oceanography professor at the university of florida noticed something weird about sharks. nothing grows on the skins. not barnacles, not algae, not bacteria. bacteria? why not. he studied it under the electron mike stope and -- microscope and discovered that shark skin, really, really close up is made up of ridges so close together that only one bacteria cell at a time can fit in there but not a colony. nothing can grow. he thought, what if we could make a sheet of plastic with a pattern like that on it, printed in, we could put that in hospitals, on doorknobs, bed rails, trachea tubes, and you probably know, infections in hospitals are a huge problem. you go in with one ailment, you pick up some disease and come out with a different one. for years, all we've been trying to do is kill the

bacteria in hospitals with chemicals. you can only ever get 99% of them. the 1% that are left breed and become resistant. last year, these resistant diseases killed more americans than aids, if you can believe it. mrsa, resistant strains. so what this guy is stay, -- is saying, let's not try to kill the bacteria, let's make sheets of plastic that make the bacteria go away. it's brilliant, he'll be a billionaire, they'll make it in china. no, no. they're probably making it here. we can still have a huge impact. tavis: back to president obama's state of the union speech one more time. he talked about innovation but also the connection, the link between innovation and education. he went on to make the point that many of us know and talk about all the time, which is, vis-a-vis our education system, american kids are not focusing enough, not doing well enough in critical areas like math and science. which leads to this question, which might sound like an

opportunity for you to kiss up to pbs, it's really not, i'm curious about this. "nova" is the most-watched science program on television. help me understand how there can be so much interest in science program when our kids are lagging behind in math and science in school? there's a disconnect, maybe you can explain it for me. >> there is a disconnect. i guess the real answer, not what pbs wants to hear, even know "nova" is the most-watched science show, it's here and "american idol" is up there. it's the most watched but not the most watched of any kind. there's a couple of parts that can help. the first one, it's about image. don't kids think of science as geeky and nerds and not for girls and all that? that image has to change. i do think, with all due respect to the fact that this is a promotional appearance, that shows like this one and like nova really do make it seem as though science is cool. which it is, by the way.

there's absolutely amazing things going on closer to science fiction and if we can change that image, make it cool, and also there has to be jobs. people won't go into science if they don't think there's going to be employment on the other end. that's why i'm enthusiastic about what's going on now with congressional funding of science is there are jobs now, there are labs, there are exciting things happening. tavis: we'll connect this conversation about science to politics one more time, since you just did it in your last answer here. so in two years, i can pretty much guarantee you barack obama is going to look into a tv camera somewhere and say to the american people are you better off now, maybe he will, maybe he won't. but most presidents who run for re-election turn to the camera and say, are you better off now than you were four years ago are you cooler now than you were two years ago when you started this sflonlt >> i am i i -- infinitely cooler, tavis, because i'm on

your show. tavis: yeah, yeah. >> that makes me instantly cool. and i swam with sharks. tavis: that makes you cool. it's "nova," it's a four-part series call requested "making stuff," it's a fascinating series you want to check out as this airs on pbs. david pogue is the host. good to have you on the program and thanks for coming on and talking about it. >> my pleasure. thanks very much. tavis: i'll see you back here very much, until then, good night from l.a. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: hi, i'm tavis tavis, join me next time with south african music great vusi mahlasela and actress melissa leo. that's next time, see you then. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes.

>> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.